“But of course it wouldn’t do any good,” she said. “He’d mash us before we got near his house. Maybe he’ll mash me now.” She smiled. “For saying that.”
“Then shut up!” He stared at her in great fear.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll be quiet. I don’t want to be flung up into the air and then dropped all the way to the ground, the way Jack was.”
“I should think not.” He was trembling.
“You’re a coward,” she said mildly. “Aren’t you? I wonder why I in all this time didn’t realize it before. Maybe that’s why I feel the way I do about you.”
“And what way’s that?”
Bonny smiled. And did not answer. It was a hard, hateful and rigidly cold smile and he did not understand it; he glanced away, wondering once again if all the rumors he had heard about his wife, over the years, could be true after all. She was so cold, so independent. George Keller felt miserable.
“Christ,” he said, “you call me a coward because I don’t want to see my wife mashed flat.”
“It’s my body and my existence,” Bonny said. “I’ll do with it what I want. I’m not afraid of Hoppy; actually I am, but I don’t intend to act afraid, if you can comprehend the difference. I’ll go down there to that tar-paper house of his and face him honestly. I’ll thank him but I think I’ll tell him that he must be more careful in the future. We insist on it.”
He couldn’t help admiring her. “Do that,” he urged. “It would be a good thing, dear. He should understand that, how we feel.”
“Thank you,” she said remotely. “Thanks a lot, George, for your encouragement.” She turned away, then, listening to Orion Stroud.
George Keller felt more miserable than ever.
First it was necessary to visit Andrew Gill’s factory to pick up the special deluxe Gold Label cigarettes and the Five Star brandy; Bonny, along with Orion Stroud and Gill, left the Foresters’ Hall and walked up the road together, all of them conscious of the gravity of their task.
“What’s this business relationship you’re going into with McConchie?” Bonny asked Andrew Gill.
Gill said, “Stuart is going to bring automation to my factory.”
Not believing him she said, “And you’re going to advertise over the satellite, I suppose. Singing commercials, as they used to be called. How will they go? Can I compose one for you?”
“Sure,” he said, “if it’ll help business.”
“Are you serious, about this automation?” It occurred to her now that perhaps he actually was.
Gill said, “I’ll know more when I’ve visited Stuart’s boss in Berkeley. Stuart and I are going to make the trip very shortly. I haven’t seen Berkeley in years. Stuart says it’s building up again—not as it was before, of course. But even that may eventually come some day.”
“I doubt that,” Bonny said. “But I don’t care anyhow; it wasn’t so good as all that. Just so it builds back some.”
Glancing about to make sure that Orion could not hear him, Gill said to her, “Bonny, why don’t you come along with Stuart and me?”
Astonished, she said, “Why?”
“It would do you good to break with George. And maybe you could manage to make the break with him final. You should, for his sake and yours.”
Nodding, she said, “But—“ It seemed to her out of the question; it went too far. Appearances would not be maintained. “Then everyone would know,” she said. “Don’t you think?”
Gill said, “Bon, they know already.”
“Oh.” Chastened, she nodded meekly. “Well, what a surprise. I’ve been living under a delusion, evidently.”
“Come to Berkeley with us,” Gill said, “and start over. In a sense that’s what I’m going to be doing; it marks the end of rolling cigarettes by band, one at a time, on a little cloth and rod machine. It means I’ll have a true factory in the old sense, the pre-war sense.”
“’The pre-war sense,’” she echoed. “Is that good?”
“Yes,” Gill said. “I’m damn sick and tired of rolling them by hand. I’ve been trying to free myself for years; Stuart has shown me the way. At least, I hope so.” He crossed his fingers.
They reached his factory, and there were the men at work in the rear, rollins away. Bonny thought, So this portion of our lives is soon to be over with forever. I must be sentimental because I cling to it. But Andrew is right. This is no way to produce goods; it’s too tedious, too slow. And too few cigarettes are made, really, when you get right down to it. With authentic machinery, Andrew can supply the entire country—assuming that the transportation, the means of delivery, is there.
Among the workmen Stuart McConchie crouched by a barrel of Gill’s fine ersatz tobacco, inspecting it. Well, Bonny thought, he either has Andrew’s special deluxe formula by now or he isn’t interested in it. “Hello,” she said to him. “Can you sell his cigarettes once they start rolling off the assembly line in quantity? Have you worked that part out?”.
“Yes,” McConchie said. “We’ve set up plans for distribution on a mass basis. My employer, Mr. Hardy—“
“Don’t give me a big sales pitch,” she interrupted. “I believe you if you say so; I was just curious.” She eyed him critically. “Andy wants me to travel to Berkeley with you. What do you say?”
“Sure,” he said vaguely.
“I could be your receptionist,” Bonny said. “At your central offices. Right in the center of the city. Correct?” She laughed, but neither Stuart McConchie nor Gill joined her. “Is this sacred?” she asked. “Am I treading on holy topics when I joke? I apologize, if I am.”
“It’s okay,” McConchie said. “We’re just concerned; there’re still a number of details to work out.”
“Maybe I will go along,” Bonny said. “Maybe it’ll solve my problems, finally.”
Now it was McConchie’s turn to scrutinize her. “What problems do you have? This seems a nice environment here, to bring up your daughter in; and your old man being principal of—“
“Please,” she said. “I don’t care to hear a summary of my blessings. Spare me.” She walked off, to join Gill who was packaging cigarettes in a metal box for presentation to the phocomelus.
The world is so innocent, she thought to herself. Even yet, even after all that’s happened to us. Gill wants to cure me of my—restlessness. Stuart McConchie can’t imagine what I could wish for that I don’t have right here. But maybe they’re right and I’m wrong. Maybe I’ve made my life unduly complicated … maybe there’s a machine in Berkeley that will save me, too. Perhaps my problems can be automated out of existence.
Off in a corner, Orion Stroud was writing out a speech which he intended to deliver to Hoppy. Bonny smiled, thinking of the solemnity of it all. Would Hoppy be impressed? Would he perhaps be amused or even filled with bitter contempt? No, she thought; he will like it—I have an intuition. It is just the sort of display that he yearns for. Recognition of him; that will please him terribly.
Is Hoppy preparing to receive us? she wondered. Has he washed his face, shaved, put on an especially clean suit … is he waiting expectantly for us to arrive? Is this the achievement of his life, the pinnacle?
She tried to imagine the phocomelus at this moment. Hoppy had, a few hours ago, killed a man, and she knew from what Edie said the people all believed he had killed the glasses man. The town rat catcher, she said to herself, and shivered. Who will be next? And will he get a presentation next time—for each one, from now on?
Maybe we will be returning again and again to make one presentation after another, she thought. And she thought, I will go to Berkeley; I want to get as far away from here as possible.
And, she thought, as soon as possible. Today, if I can. Right now. Hands in her coat pockets, she walked quickly back to join Stuart McConchie and Gill; they were conferring, now, and she stood as close to them as she could, listening to their words with complete raptness.
Doubtfully, Doctor Stockstill said to the phocomelus, “Are you sure he can hear me? This definitely transmits all the way to the satellite?” He touched the mike button again, experimentally.
“I can’t possibly assure you that he can hear you,” Hoppy said with a snigger. “I can only assure you that this is a five hundred watt transmitter; that’s not very much by the old standards but it’s enough to reach him. I’ve reached him with it a number of times.” He grinned his sharp, alert grin, his intelligent gray eyes alive with splinters of light. “Go ahead. Does he have a couch up there, or can that be skipped?” The phocomelus laughed, then.